Challenges

I love being a mother and having perfectly normal children is totally over rated. When I share that both of my children are special needs, people always say crap like "Oh, I'm so sorry." Why? I'm not sorry. I love my two knuckle heads just the way they are. They are sweet, kind, loving, generous people.

Of course, it does have it's challenges. For instance, a person with Asberger's like my daughter either really loves something or she's just not interested in it. If she's just not interested in it, forget it. You can't make her do it, not without a whip and chains. So I probably have one of the only people in America that got straight A's when she took Chinese in High School while she failed everything else.

So she's in a special adult education program and she's supposed to have her HS Diploma by May 30th next month. If she screws this up and doesn't get it, I just may string her up by her toes.

My other challenge is trying to keep her happy because I live with her. I don't have to live with her. I could shove her in a home somewhere. People still do that. But I love my daughter and most of the time she's not hard to live with. She understands that we're poor. She understands that I lost my job last month and we need to find a cheaper place to live. She doesn't ask for expensive fancy clothes or shoes. But she wants to be someplace that has a pool.

I love to swim. I really do. But we need to be practical right now. A pool is a luxury we can live without. So she's just going to need to get used to the idea of not having access to one this summer. But it pains me to have to move in somewhere where she won't have access to one. She did use the pool here nearly everyday last summer. Without one all she'll do is spend the whole day on her computer reading. Let's hope we find ourselves within walking distance of a library.